Since we are officially in the age of Trump, in which racism and sexism are openly defended – even celebrated – the tendency towards recuperating figures that progressive thinkers have painstakingly worked to pull down from their pedestals is unfortunately very much in the air. Just recently, a journal article making a case for colonialism went viral. Liberal democrats have somehow become nostalgic for former US President, George W. Bush. Identity politics and, by extension, issues of representation, have come to be seen as trite. The question being asked is: So much is going wrong right now, must we really waste our energies on identity and representation? There is a desire to return to a more innocent time when it was okay to be just a little racist, just a little sexist. This particular desire has now been (mis)articulated through the lens of urgency. Precisely because of such a political climate, Ngugi’s defense of both Jasanoff’s openly stereotypical views of Congo and Conrad’s ambivalent stance towards empire have come as a blow. It took me by so much surprise that I went back to Jasanoff’s August article on Congo and re-read it carefully, wondering whether I had been mistaken in my initial reading; so staunch is my faith in Ngugi’s thinking. But I do believe he is wrong in this case.

“Existing inside a marginalized body while trying to navigate these spaces leads to a sense of exclusion, much like the one felt when navigating the dominant culture. Counterculture spaces are not revolutionary and rebellious if their central community is tailored for affluent, white, thin, and able bodied people.”